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Hong Kong’s Cancer?

The now one month old protest movement in Hong Kong, brought out to the surface all the ugliest, and the most beautiful parts of our society for all to see. Anyone who had their eyes wide open, would have been able to see the true colours of their friends, family members, neighbours, colleagues, even celebrities. No doubt, this had led to many quarrels and arguments amongst different groups, and even mass “unfriending” on Facebook. But it had also led to new friendships and even romantic relationships being formed as well. We had witnessed the beautiful side of Honkongers in the three Umbrella Village protest sites around HK and Kowloon, and even displayed on top of the Lion Rock Mountain, which had been a symbol of the Hong Kong spirit all along. We also witnessed the ugliest side of certain people, in the violent and brutal beatings by the police and blue ribbon wearing thugs, along with the criticisms of people who chose to have their “eyes wide shut”, while calling themselves the silent majority. But the ugliest of all is most certainly the CE of Hong Kong, CY Leung, who now might be the most hated person in the city for both supporters and opposers of the protests. As some have said; of the three CE we have had so far, there is no one who is the ugliest, they only keep getting uglier.

This movement, whatever name you want to call it, be it the Umbrella Revolution, the Umbrella Movement, Occupy Central, or Occupy Hong Kong, had turned out better than anyone had hoped for. In many ways, it was the best thing that had happened to Hong Kong in my generation. Being born in the 70s Hong Kong, in a middle class family, and spending a number of years living overseas, I had always felt that something was terribly wrong with HK, whilst still having a strong emotional bond with my homeland. Ever since the movement had begun, and even a bit before that, I started to truly “fit in” and had found people that I was able to relate to, and build friendships on. And like many families now, my stance on the protests is in contrast to my parents, which had led to the avoidance of this topic at family dinners. Thankfully, most of my friends on Facebook was already a yellow ribbon supporter, and minimal unfriending happened. This also reiterated my choice for friends all along, which gave me some comfort.

Recently, a few hundred doctors issued a joint statement on a full page ad, posted in a major HK newspaper. In this statement, the group of doctors publicly condemned the occupy movement by calling it a “cancer” of Hong Kong which had to be removed. Typical of the pro-establishment camp, this group of doctors had totally twisted the logic of reality, and got it the wrong way around when they compared the movement to cancer cells of the human body. To counter their argument using their own metaphors, it would be more accurate to compare the Umbrella Revolution to chemo therapy, and the people in the pro-establishment camp, along with useless government officials and the oppressive police, as the real cancer cells eating away at the healthy good cells of Hong Kong. As chemo therapy is used to treat and fight against bad cancer cells in the body, while also killing some healthy cells around the treated area as collateral damage, it’s been a treatment that everyone knew to be a long and painful process. But in the end, many cancer patients (including people who were close to me) had survived because of this treatment, and were glad they had chosen to undertake this treatment. Well, of course the occupy movement is painful and controversial just like chemo therapy is, and might even cause some collateral damage to certain sectors of HK, but it is still necessary for us to undertake such a treatment in order to root out the cancer cells that had been eating away at our society for all these years. No one can deny the fact that Hong Kong has been sick for a long time now, and it is getting sicker everyday with the ample amounts of symptoms showing everywhere. To treat our unhealthy society in such a critical state, radical solutions must be applied immediately, or face the total failure of our immune system, or even worst.

2 responses to “Hong Kong’s Cancer?”

Hong Kong may not have all the social problems of say the Phillipines or Malaysia. However, whenever there is a major societal change like transfer of sovereignty, people who are used to a life style or style of governance they accept (which may not be democratic but plenty of freedom) and when they feel their way of life being threatened, they rebel.